Video game film adaptations haven’t had the best track record. They’ve been historically maligned by critics; some justly (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is, in fact, that bad), others unjustly (Mortal Kombat remains a 90s camp classic). Now we have Rampage, based on the classic giant monster arcade game, being marketed as “the best-reviewed video game movie of all time.” But despite this dubious designation, Rampage can barely be called an adaptation. It deviates from and adds so much to its narratively sparse source material that it’s essentially its own beast. Continue reading →

Back in my college days, I read Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One – believe it or not – for a class. It was a light, fast-paced read; the kind of book that’s hard to put down and easy to plow through. But despite its fleeting pleasures, the moment I finished I could feel my inner critic starting to wake up. The more thought I gave Ready Player One, the more cynical my attitude towards it became. Could this collection of pop-culture references tacked onto a generic treasure-hunt plot even be called a novel? These doubts grew so quickly that they completely tarnished my previous enjoyment of the book, and soon I felt duped for having bought into it in the first place. Continue reading →